The
company Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry smartphone, could
be gearing up to take a bite out of the Apple
iPad market come this November. It is speculated
that RIM is developing a touchscreen tablet called the "Blackpad"
to compete with the popular tablet. Sources indicate that the
RIM pad will be similar to the iPad in many ways.

Two
people familiar with the company have already confirmed the plans,
according toBloomberg
andApple
Insider.

"With
the success of the iPad, RIM faces an uphill battle,” said William
Power, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., “RIM really has yet
to demonstrate that it can roll out touchscreen technology to match
the leaders in the space, most noticeably Apple."

The
Blackpad would reportedly be identical in dimensions to the iPad,
featuring a 9.7 inch screen and would be within the same price range
-- starting at $499.

The tablet would include Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth and would allow users to to be tethered through their
Blackberry
phone. This is something that Apple does not currently
allow with the iPhone and the iPad. The RIM tablet will also
have front and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing.

"They
can’t wait for a second generation of devices from Apple or they’ll
fall too far behind," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman &
Renshaw Inc. in New York.

Reports indicate that the
domain name blackpad.com was acquired by RIM earlier this month.

HP
recently applied for and was awarded a trademark for the name
PalmPad. The company confirmed that a tablet is currently being
developed.

In late July, India announced that they were
looking for a manufacturer to
produce a $35 tablet that the country is working on, to compete
with the iPad.

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RIM's core market is Enterprise and there's a lot of IT departments that already support BB products. If RIM can release a tablet that ties in nicely with that system, and offers companies some decent enterpise software, they could own the enterpise tablet market.

No doubt. And some consumers will still buy Blackberries for the keyboard. They're one step up from a messaging phone... adding a data plan for internet access. And Blackberries will always be a staple for the enterprise for many years to come.

For others... big screen app phones are becoming the norm... and they're becoming more popular every day.

I loved my Blackberry. But I'm looking for more in a phone now... and I'm not the only one.

I disagree. BB has the WORST (by HUG amounts) operating system of any modern smartphone maker... Unless they will be licensing someone else's OS this thing will be a flop. Blackberries OS is 5 years behind the rest of the world. They are only dominant because 5 years ago they had a great email solution. Now they are fading.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer